Finding something valuable you were not looking for. In everyday use that is simply a fortunate accident; in Walpole's stricter original sense it also takes the sagacity to notice what you have stumbled on.
Horace Walpole, 28 January 1754, in a letter to Horace Mann.
// Where it sits
Almost every modern use sits at the left end of this line. Walpole's sits at the right.
What it really means
On 28 January 1754, Horace Walpole wrote a letter and invented a word in it. He had been reading a tale he dismissed as a silly fairy tale — The Three Princes of Serendip — and noticed something about how its heroes operated.
They were, he wrote, always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of.
Two ingredients. Not one. The accident is the half everyone kept. The sagacity — the wit to read the accident correctly — is the half that fell off, and it is the half that made the word worth having.
Walpole's own example is the test. One of the princes deduces that a mule that passed by was blind in its right eye, because the grass had been cropped only on the left side of the road. Nothing lucky happened there. Something unnoticed happened, and someone was paying attention at the level required to read it.
Then he adds the clause that invalidates most modern usage outright: no discovery of a thing you are looking for comes under this description. If you were searching for it, it is not serendipity — however delightful the surprise.
So the strict definition has two locks: you weren't looking, and you were sharp enough to catch it anyway. Drop the second and you have renamed luck. Drop the first and you have renamed research.
One more thing about the word's own life, which is quietly appropriate. It stayed rare for nearly 150 years. A revival attempt in 1877 didn't take. It was still missing from the Century Dictionary in 1902. A word for finding what you weren't looking for spent a century and a half being exactly that.
Where it comes from
The word stayed rare for nearly 150 years. An 1877 revival attempt didn't take, and it was still absent from the Century Dictionary as of 1902.
Myths & misconceptions
Serendipity means a happy accident — good luck.
Walpole's definition has two required ingredients. The princes were 'always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of'. Sagacity — the wit to interpret the accident — is not optional. His own example: one prince deduced a mule was blind in the right eye because the grass had been eaten only on the left side of the road. That is inference, not fortune. Walpole called the process 'accidental sagacity'.
Any lucky find counts.
Walpole explicitly excluded the case the word is most often used for: 'no discovery of a thing you are looking for comes under this description.' If you were searching for it, it is not serendipity, however pleasant the surprise.
Compare & contrast
Serendipity vs luck
Luck requires nothing of you. Serendipity, as coined, requires two things at once: that you were not looking for it, and that you were sharp enough to see it. Drop the sagacity and you have merely renamed luck.
| // | Serendipity | Luck |
|---|---|---|
| Requires alertness | Yes | No |
| Requires not-seeking | Yes | No |
| Can be cultivated | Partly | No |
| Walpole would allow it | Yes | No |
How it connects
Tell it apart
Questions people ask
- Who invented the word serendipity?
- Horace Walpole, in a letter dated 28 January 1754, after reading what he called a 'silly fairy tale' — The Three Princes of Serendip.
- Does serendipity just mean luck?
- Not in Walpole's sense. He required sagacity alongside the accident, and explicitly ruled out anything you were actually searching for.
- Where does 'Serendip' come from?
- It is an old name for Sri Lanka — Arabic Sarandib, from Sanskrit Simhaladvipa, 'Dwelling-Place-of-Lions Island'.